A “Computing Network” refers to any system that includes one or more computers and storage devices interconnected by a communications network that enables the implementation of software applications that utilize the functionality of all three elements (computation, storage, and information transfer) of the system. The modern Internet is an example of a computing network, which enables the implementation of so-called Cloud computing applications that utilize the capabilities of the computation, storage, and information transfer elements that form the Internet. A data center is also an example of a computing network as the three elements are present, but in different proportions, than the Internet. Communications networks primarily perform information transfer.
At present, the methods, techniques and systems used to implement each of the three elements of a computing network are modeled using respective different architectures, and managed using respective different techniques, representations and protocols.
For example, in communications networks, the client/server and recursive nature of the architecture identified in International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Recommendation G.800 are used in the TeleManagement Forum's (TMF's) Multi-Technology Network Management specifications to manage communication networks. New networking technologies such as Optical Transport Network (OTN) can be added into the TMF's management solutions without major change because the commonality of the new technology with other networking technologies is readily understood using the patterns exposed through the G.800 architecture. These techniques have been designed for managing communications networks, and were not developed for managing computing and storage systems.
In computer programming languages, object oriented concepts reflect some of the power of information models in that abstract classes define some structure and methods that specific instances of the object class can inherit. This enables programmers familiar with one class instance to readily understand and use another class that inherits from a common object or abstract class. The object concept is seen in the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Common Information Model (CIM) which has been instantiated into system specific specifications such as the “Wi-Fi Port Profile”, “Physical Computer System View Profile”, “Open Virtualization Format Specification”, and “System Management Architecture for Server Hardware” (in DSP0217), all of which may be used to manage computer server systems.
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has defined techniques for modeling and management of storage devices in a network. However, these techniques do not offer any means of managing the communications networks that interconnect storage devices with each other and with associated computing resources.
It would be desirable to provide a unified architecture capable of efficiently modeling all three elements of a computing network.
Similarly, it would be desirable to provide a unified management system capable of efficiently managing a computing network of any desired size or complexity.
The problem then, is how to model the functionality of communications networks, computer servers and storage systems in a unified manner, so that unified hierarchical management techniques may be implemented in a computing network.